International Sports Marketing

Introduction

International sports are lucrative business. One of the ever growing industries of our times, this globalized business requires a great deal of marketing to attract the kind of attention that it does. A great number of people participate all over the world as spectators and players in an assortment of sporting activities, creating opportunities for organizations to market their goods and services also through the sports being played.

A significant element of the commerce of sports is sports marketing, of course. “Sports marketing is simply any sales or publicity-related activity associated with an organized sporting event (or events), its personalities, or the celebrity lifestyle of its participants” (Schaaf 22). There are two mechanisms of sports marketing: marketing through sports and the marketing of sport. Marketing of sport is the actual marketing of a fastidious sport such as baseball or football.

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This consists of, but is not restricted to, endorsements, signage, print media, billboards, broadcast media, and news media. Good examples of marketing by way of endorsements are Anna Kournikova wearing Adidas shoes or Maria Sharpova taking pictures with a Canon camera. A variety of media that talk about athletic organizations or teams is an illustration of such ‘marketing-of-sports,’ which must often take the form of international sports marketing. International Sports Marketing 3.

There are many ways of promoting or marketing an international sporting occasion such as the Olympics, or the cricket matches in Australia and England. Marketing through sports, on the other hand, consists of sponsorship of sporting events by big organizations that would like to advertise their own products and services to the sports lovers attending the events and watching the same on television. This form of sports marketing includes, but is not limited to, signage at the stadium, promotions during event, and free give-a-ways.

Although both marketing-of-sports and ‘marketing-through-sports’ are essential features of international sports marketing; the present study concentrates on the marketing-of-sports to find out about the different kinds of approaches used for marketing sports, events, and famous personalities connected with the sports and events. Objective of the Study This study would seek the answer to the following question: What are the different kinds of marketing-of-sports (as opposed to marketing-through-sports) activities involved in the commerce of international sports? Methods.

This study would engage a major literature review on sports management and sports marketing, mainly to discover the myriad ways in which sporting events, sporting goods as well as athletes International Sports Marketing 4 are marketed and celebrated internationally. The student would be searching for a large number of organizations involved with some type of international marketing-of-sports. As an example, International Sports Marketing Ltd. is an organization dealing in European as well as Chinese sporting goods, outdoor, golf, fitness, and extreme sports stuff.

The company has 25 EU and 5 non-EU members. The researcher would certainly send an email questionnaire to the marketing manager of the firm to request information about the marketing strategies employed for international marketing of sporting goods (“International Sports”). The email questionnaire, consisting mainly of short form, objective, and multiple choice form questions, would also be sent to Mountain Sports International, an organization that markets high-charged, high-gear sporting events (“Mountain Sports”).

Similarly, Q Sports is an association that markets athletes for advertisements, celebrity shows, all kinds of sporting events, etc. (“Q Sports”). The researcher would also send out email questionnaires to a number of sporting magazine publishers and their marketing managers, sporting goods stores, sporting venues, and athletes as well as coaches. With a focus on marketing-of-sports, the questionnaire would allow all parties of interest to provide information about the marketing strategies that are played out in the arena of international sports.

Seeing that the international business of sports could never survive without the Olympics, a special effort would be made by the researcher to additionally communicate with hosts of Olympics that have been held in the past, not only in Canada but also in other nations. E-mail communication being the primary method of survey – this research would utilize the interviews of at least 25-100 different people, entities, organizations, or groups based around the

International Sports Marketing 5 globe and involved with international sports marketing. The marketing information thus gathered would be in the form of quantitative and qualitative data (collected through open-ended questions in the survey/questionnaire sent by email). Conclusion After inquiring of a significant number of people about international marketing-of-sports, the researcher would analyze the results.

The quantitative data would reveal how often print ads are used for sports events, for example, or how many athletes get paid for commercials on television nowadays. Most importantly, however, the present research would result in a body of data regarding the variety of marketing strategies applied in the area of international sports. The main limitation of the present study is based on this alone; the fact that the final report might not include absolutely all kinds of marketing methods used for the international business of sports is a limitation, indeed.

At the same time, this is a unique research that would definitely add to our present knowledge base in both international business and sports marketing.

References

1. International Sports Marketing Ltd. Retrieved 7 June 2007, from http://www. ismsearch. com/.
2. Mountain Sports International. Retrieved 7 June 2007, from http://www. mtsports. com/. Q Sports. Retrieved 7 June 2007, from http://www. qsports. net/.

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